We spent many days on horseback, following the river, but always moving North.
My body was beginning to fully recover, and I spent my travel time trying to learn the language from my auburn-haired teacher.
It seemed primitive at first, but I was shocked at its depth when I discovered that there was a written form, and that it was shared by my teacher and the other tribes that we met.
We kept traveling and I was able to learn a few phrases that allowed me to have more independence with the group.
I still slept beside my teacher though. The night air in the plains here remained hot, but the night terrors that I was plagued with would cause me to start screaming until my teacher was able to bring me back to my senses.
I know that I was a burden to the group, and that a few were unhappy that I was journeying with them. That was something I could tell even before I began to understand their insults.
---
Travis
“Got your writing tools?”
“Yep”
“Extra charcoal and paper in case you need more?”
“Yes…”
“Is your canteen filled? Do you have plenty of snacks?”
“Ugh, yes.”
“How about your lucky pair of socks? You just grabbed a pair at random this morning.”
“What? Why would my socks be lucky?” I asked, foolishly exposing myself to Arc’s madness.
“Because how else are you supposed to pass your entrance exams?”
I gave out an irritated sigh as I rubbed my temples with my left hand, “You’re starting to stress me out Arc.”
“That’s because it’s a stressful day! Now, go stand next to your nameless horse and give me a smile so I can have an image to remember this day by.”
Not wanting to enter a futile argument with a madman, I walked over to 5,751,054 to give him a pat on the shoulder while I turned and gave my best smile.
“No… not like that. You’re supposed to look like your mother is mildly embarrassing you by making you wait in front of your friends while she checks to make sure your outfit is spotless. And there we go… Perfect!”
I started walking with 5,751,054 out of the stable, happy that I would soon be getting some peace and quiet from Arc.
Wait… I stopped and turned my head back in the direction of the stable, “I wish that you could come too bud.”
Arc began to make a few overdramatic sobs, “I’ll miss you too!”
I made my exit for real but was surprised when the person I saw waiting outside for me was… rot, I was doing so good with everyone’s names.
Lancel’s older brother, who I just found out last night was a twin, gestured for me to come talk, “I know we haven’t really gotten the chance to know each other that well yet,” he started to lose momentum, “and I just wanted to say… umm, before you go…” He started to look agitated and nervous.
I could tell he wanted to say something, but I interrupted him by giving him a calming pat on the shoulder, “It’s ok.” I then looked into his yellow-orange eyes, “I’ll be coming back whether I pass or fail.”
Lancel’s brother let out a tension-relieving breath and then gave me the family’s signature grin, “Thanks, between hearing about Gaward from Lancel and now you taking the exam, I’ve been nothing but roiling clouds.” He paused to stretch his neck, “Wish I could go talk to a priest, but… yeah, I’m not going to feel comfortable talking about that to a priest of Torbolt.”
I gave him another pat, “Well, I suppose you could always talk to a priest of Apheros instead. They’re technically best known for their marriage counselors, but I assume there must be some overlap for dealing with familial drama.”
He started to lightly chuckle as we set off towards the gate, “Not a bad idea. It’s definitely better than my plan to go get day drunk and do something that’ll piss off Lucia with my stupidity.”
I shook my head at him and then waved to Lancel and Caldia who were seeing me off.
“I’d go with, but…” Lancel spoke, pausing to complete his thought, “I’d, rather not stand around for hours doing nothing?” He sheepishly finished, locking eyes with one of the guards.
The guard, the same one who sparred with me the other day, gave out a short laugh, “It’s not so bad if you’re paid to do so.” The guard then checked over the saddle on his horse before looking at me, “Ready when you are.”
I turned to say goodbye but was frozen solid when Caldia approached me to give my cheek a kiss. She then joined in on Lancel’s laughter before speaking, “Good luck!”
Arc began to make irritating cooing noises and started sobbing, “My baby boy is growing up too fast!”
The comment got me motivated to leave as soon as possible, and I quickly got up on my horse, “Let’s go.”
---
Arc
I watched as Travis left, feeling glum about not being able to join him for his big day. I was in good company at least, Lancel was walking a bit aimlessly back into the estate until Percy invited him to the archery range.
The two kept taking turns doing the equivalent of darts at the pub, even having drinks brought over.
Eventually, Percy broke the brotherly silence, “So, did you ask Gaward?”
Lancel shook his head no, “Was too angry to even speak to him.” Lancel paused to line up a shot and shoot, “I don’t even know why I was mad, I just…”
“I still have nightmares about that day.” Percy let out quietly. “How mom broke down in tears when the guard returned without him. I just wish that I knew why. We never kept secrets from each other…”
Lancel tried his best to mimic one of Travis’ pats, “Something tells me that any answer he’d give wouldn’t satisfy us.”
The two gave each other a long shield-brother hug before resuming their “archery practice”.
Sadly, it was looking to be a boring day, there wasn’t anyone else worth spending the time to snoop on, the only other Hopkins family member left on the estate was Caldia, who was… walking over to me?
She opened the trunk that I was in and then set me down on a sheet of paper that she was carrying. She then took out a chunk of charcoal and began tracing my outline, turning me on to my edge to trace again, and then took what I think was a piece of clay and made an imprint of my blade right before the hilt.
I saw her smile as she put me back away, commenting that Travis better enjoy the gift.
---
Travis
I took time to enjoy the silence as I followed the guard to the Mage’s Academy. I was actually happy that I had an excuse to leave Arc, since I didn’t want him to be tempted into helping me out and take away my potential accomplishment.
Eventually we made it to the campus, and while the mix of dwarven and elven architecture was something to behold, I couldn’t help but notice a certain lack of something.
“Something wrong?” My guard companion asked.
I rolled my shoulders and gave a strained half-smile, “No… I guess not. It’s just… I thought there would be towers, since… you know, mages live in towers…”
The guard started chuckling, “From what I’ve heard, it’s only High Elves that live in towers back in their homeland. Besides, they wouldn’t be allowed to build them very tall anyways. It’s illegal to build higher than the walls of the palace.”
“Hmm,” I contemplated as I got off my horse, “I wonder why?”
“Probably a security thing,” the guard guessed as he and I grabbed our bags, “I assume the Queen gets an unobscured view of the entire city because of it.”
I nodded my head in agreement, then after double-checking that I had 5751054’s second tag, patted him on the shoulder to signal that he could join the line with the other horses waiting to check in at the stables.
The guard and I started walking into the campus, and quickly found the location to sign up for the exam. We got into the quickly moving line, and it didn’t take long for me to stand in front of an administrator.
“First name?”
“Travis”
“Family name?”
I stated proudly, “Don’t have one, I’m just the son of a farmer. Oh, I am a ward to the Hopkins Clan though, if that’s relevant…”
“Uh huh, I’ll just leave it blank.”
The administrator then clearly wrote something in the “Last Name” portion of the form, but I couldn’t quite make out her poor handwriting enough to see.
“Proof of age.”
I handed her my identification papers, including the emancipation certificate that the lawyer was able to create for me yesterday.
“Finally, someone who actually has all of their paperwork.” The administrator then took out a stamp and pressed it onto the form that she was filling out. She then grabbed a sheet of paper and handed it to me. “Here’s your written test location and start time, just follow the signs or ask a senior student to lead you. Your companion can wait for you at the Union Hall, which is where you’ll sign up for the practical portion of the test. Any questions?”
“Umm, no, I don’t think so.”
“Excellent, good luck with your test!”
I nodded my head at the administrator and then began to follow the signs until we got to a fork in the path.
“Well, looks like this is where we part.” The guard who I was feeling guilty about for not knowing his name stated.
I nodded at my companion, “Thanks for coming, umm…”
“Barry.”
“Sorry. Thanks for coming Barry, I’ll try to remember your name as thanks.” I let out an embarrassed chuckle that he seemed to enjoy.
“Haha, no worries kid. The Matriarch spent an entire year calling me Gary when I first joined.”
We parted ways and I followed the signs until I found myself in a classroom filled with desks. A guy who must have been a student waved to me and told me to leave my bag by the entrance and to take a seat at one of the desks, but not touch the packet sitting on it.
I looked over and noticed a pen and ink set sitting on the desk, “Umm, is it alright if I use charcoal instead to write?”
“Did you bring your own writing set?”
“Yes.” I pulled my set from my bag and handed it to the student.
He looked through it, pulling out each piece and holding the resin vial up to the light, “Alright, you’re good. You can use this.”
I sat down at one of the desks and the student was kind enough to take away the pen and ink. I looked up at the clock in the room and noticed that there was still 15 minutes before my start time. I leaned back in my chair and let out a long breath, a tad annoyed that I had to wait.
The student, with the typical pale skin and black hair of a Northman, cracked a smile at me, “Eager to get started?”
“Well, I’ve been wanting to apply here since I was ten, so you’d think another 15 minutes would be nothing.” I joked to him.
“Just promise me that you won’t be the one to have the panic attack today. There’s usually at least one per day.”
I grinned wildly at the student, “No promises.”
The classroom began to fill as the start time finally neared. The student was joined by a few others and a teacher at the front of the classroom where they stood with their eyes searching over the room.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You will have 4 hours to complete your test. When you are finished, wave to one of the students here, and they’ll escort you out of the room. You will not be permitted to share knowledge with another test taker, or touch another’s desk or test. If you need something, such as a bathroom break or more ink, raise your hand, and a student will assist you shortly.”
“Begin.”
I broke the seal on the side of my packet and began to skim through the test like Arc coached me to do.
Looks like it’s essay questions for the history portion, data interpretation for the science portion, and word problems for the math portion. Nothing too complicated then.
I started with the math section and found it surprisingly easy. There was a page at the beginning that had a list of common formulas for me to reference, and although there was a lot of facets of trigonometry and calculus covered, the questions were just beginner level problems.
I took a moment to stretch my arms and neck before I started the science portion, which earned me a look from a student, but they smiled when they noticed that I was moving on to a new portion of the test.
It was a bit more difficult, mainly since I had to keep in mind what Arc taught me about how correlation can trick you into thinking something is the cause. I was a bit nervous about how I had to conclude a few times that the data was either insufficient or not relevant to the question I was supposed to answer with the data.
Finally, I just had the history portion, and after taking another minute to stretch, I dived right into the first batch of essay questions.
Summarize Eldar Adifel’s first interaction with humans. Explain the historical significance of the Sky Dwarf ruins in the Lakeland Crater. What are the advantages given by having a river that runs through the center of the human kingdom? Why, despite its young age, is Common used as the universal trade language?
I kept writing and writing, using the 3-argument format that Arc taught me for most of them. Eventually I finished my last question and was shocked that I still had over an hour left on the clock before time was up.
I must have caught the attention of the student from earlier, because he came up to me and quietly asked if I was finished.
I looked down at my test, worried that I had carelessly rushed through it, but a chuckle from the student made me look back up.
“You’re fine, most of the people who pass finish early.”
I nodded my head in thanks and allowed him to escort me outside of the room.
---
I entered the Union Hall and spotted… umm, Gar- no wait, not Gary, Barry sitting at one of the tables reading a book.
“What’re you reading?”
Barry looked up startled, then quickly closed his book and placed a hand over the cover, “Just a boring adventure novel. Nothing you would enjoy.”
“Uh huh…” I looked at him unconvinced, “Well, I finished the written portion, and signed up for the practical, so I just got to wait for my name to get called now.”
“That’s great! Sounds like we’ll get out of here early.”
I nodded my head and sat down to eat the snack that I brought along.
We sat there for a little while making small talk, Barry not once moving his hand. Unfortunately, our relative peace was disturbed by a group of armored individuals entering the hall.
I hunched over at the table, hoping that I could avoid their gaze, however Barry noticed that one of the paladins that entered looked familiar.
“Does that one look like Percy to you?”
Percy! That was the name of the middle brother, which… means… I turned to give a quick look, but accidentally caught eyes with the paladin that I met just last night.
“Dammit.” I exclaim when the paladin began to walk straight over with a few of his friends.
I massaged the sides of my head, “That’s Percy’s twin brother. The one who got exiled for joining a paladin order.”
“Oh, storm. I don’t get paid enough for this…”
The pounding of steel-coated boots drew near before suddenly stopping, “It’s Travis, correct?”
I mentally whispered a prayer to Apheros to have my name called soon, “Yes, I don’t believe I got yours last night.”
The paladin of Torbolt extended his hand, “My name is Gaward, Paladin of Torbolt.”
I slowly extended my hand to shake, “What brings you to my table Gaward?”
“I wish to apologize for my brother’s behavior towards the paladin orders. My family’s drama has likely clouded his judgement, so I would like to humbly request that you do not hold him accountable for his biases. He is a dedicated soldier, is talented in other fields as well, and one that will give you his undying loyalty should you ask.”
I gave a confused stare at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying, and I noticed Barry looking just as perplexed as I was, “Umm, I think you have misread the situation. Lancel is my trusted friend, and his talent as a soldier is just a side bonus.”
Gaward’s eyes bulged in their sockets, and he began to back away, “I apologize… I, should not have disturbed you…” He kept backing away and then finally gave a low bow, “Please forgive this one for his foolishness.” He then briskly walked away, fully leaving the Union Hall.
“Sorry about that,” the other paladin who was standing nearby stated as he sat down next to me, “I told him who you were, and he immediately began to freak out.”
I rubbed my face with my hands, giving out another silent prayer, this one to Torbolt, asking him to strike me dead so I wouldn’t have to endure more of this shit pile.
I lowered my hands and turned to the remaining paladin of Apheros, “I take it there’s something you want to say also?”
“I’ll keep it short and simple. I was sent here by the Archbishop, so as soon as you’re done here, just let me know, and I’ll escort you to the church.” He caught me glaring at him, annoyed that he had the gall to assume that I’d join their order without even giving me the sales pitch. He then immediately cleared his throat, “Erhm, right… I’ll leave you alone then.”
He stood up and walked away in time for my name to be called out by a tall silver-haired elf.
“Travis umm, Farm-boy?”
I groaned for a bit while I banged my head against the table. Barry gave me a sympathetic grin as I got up and walked over with as much confidence as I could muster.
“I’m Travis”
The alabaster skinned High Elf gave me a look from head to toe, “Well, let’s get this farce over with.”
I mentally bit down my tongue and followed him to a small room with a pair of instructors. We walked up to the first table, and my guide handed a sheet of paper to a caramel-skinned Sea Elf.
“Identify the mana crystal type in each one of these boxes.”
I closed my eyes and activated my mana sight, allowing me to easily see the different colors in each box.
“That one has Air crystals. That one has Earth, that one’s Light, that one is half Water half Fire, that one has Ice, and that one has some Wood but is mostly Metal crystals.”
I opened my eyes in time to see the shocked face of the dreadlocked Sea Elf, “That’s… correct. Perfect score.”
My High Elf guide gave a small grunt and brought me to the next station where I was directed to stand on an inscribed circle and place my hands on a glass orb in the middle.
“For this test, we need you to activate all of the mana in your body and bring your pulse rate up slightly.”
I did as instructed, then had to repeat the process multiple times while they recalibrated the device.
“Ok, try again”
I amped up my mana a small percentage for the fifth time, thankfully the tester seemed to have fixed the equipment issue.
“Sorry about that, looks like you’re a near perfect 25% of each of the four mana types. We didn’t prepare for someone like you to actually try and take the exam.” The tester then looked to my guide, “His capacity is plenty high, so you can continue.”
I followed my irritated looking guide out and down a hallway, trying my best not to panic at the statement that I heard. The tester implied that there was something different about my mana and I couldn’t comprehend what it was.
I glanced around and seeing that it was just the instructor and me, decided to look at him with my mana sight.
I nearly tripped over myself when I looked at him. I knew that he’d have a huge amount since he was likely an instructor here, but what shocked me wasn’t the quantity.
His mana supply was mostly composed of wind mana; around 75% if I had to guess. Arc and I once speculated that it was possible that some mages specialized in only two elements, but this was much more extreme than we imagined.
I tried to calm my breath, remembering the lessons Arc taught me about how putting all of my training into a single area would leave me with an “unbalanced build”.
I kept walking and reinforced my willpower with each step. If not specializing in a single element will cause me to fail the exam, then I was ok with it. Why would I ever want to limit myself in such a fashion?
We entered an area that had a series of wooden poles with straw targets attached.
My irritated guide made a quick inhale, “This part is simple, just attack a target.”
I glanced at the elf and gave him a raised eyebrow, his instructions seemed too simple, my entire being was screaming that it was a trick question. He remained expressionless and after a pause muttered with an annoyed tone, “I have more exam practitioners to evaluate today…”
I decided to just let loose, it’d been weeks since I last went all out with spells, my built-up frustrations from today needed an outlet, and that target was just begging me to destroy it.
I started by aggressively charging up my mana to gather the ambient mana in the room and launched the biggest [Fire Orb] that I could muster at the target. It burst into flames, and I used some of my lingering control to have the flames spin around the pole, making the straw target burn up fully.
I shaped my gathered Earth Mana next, packing a rock the size of my fist as tight as possible with Earth Mana before adjusting the spell array and making the rock fly at a blindingly fast speed towards the pole, causing a loud Crack! as it hit.
Seeing the crack in the pole made me grin, and I sent a [Water Orb] encased in Wind towards the crack, guiding the Water into the small cracks with my open hand before closing my hand into a fist and forcing the Wind and Water to form Ice.
The wooden pole splintered loudly into pieces, and I could feel the battle-lust in my veins demanding me to attack another target.
I was brought out of my tunnel vision by the sound of someone laughing though.
I turned my head to see that it was the elven instructor, who was hunched over with one hand on his knee for support due to how much of an uproar he was in.
I sat there in a stupor, unsure of what to do, but he regained control of himself and gave me a smile, “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that!”
He started chuckling again, but stopped himself by clearing his throat, “You’ll have to forgive me for my lack of professionalism, I assumed that you couldn’t cast when you were staring at me earlier.”
I gave him a big grin, “Sorry, I was positive that it was a trick question of some kind. Simply attacking a target with spells just seemed too easy.”
My instructor let out a handful of laughs before composing himself, “You are correct, that technically wasn’t the test.” He gave me a grin and held up his palm, “How about we start for real?”
I swore my grin grew even larger, and I nodded my head.
“Good, now pay attention human, for I’m about to teach you your first real spell.”
I visibly saw air begin to rotate in his palm, and I instinctively closed my eyes to allow myself to focus on just the spell formation he was creating.
“This is the standby form of the standard [Wind Blade] spell.” He made a portion of the formation wiggle in place, “This bit is where the final activation trigger lies. When you are ready to activate the spell, simply point the three lines towards your target, instead of at each other.”
I began gathering Wind Mana and started detaching my synced mana into the same pattern as I was shown.
“Good, start with the trigger, and then work your ways outward.”
I finished the spell formation and gave a quick glance to my instructor.
“Looks more than stable enough. Now let’s try it out on a target.” He demonstrated how to point the trigger and I watched as the crescent shaped spell flew across the room and cause one of the straw targets to split in half.
I tried to mimic as best as I could and was delighted when a portion of my target was cut in half as well.
“Not bad for a first attempt, most students need a week just to reliably hit a target.” He looked at me, then slapped his hand across my back, “Congratulations, you’ve passed your exam!”
I sat there frozen for a moment, his declaration not wanting to sink in right away, “I… passed?”
He began to chuckle at my expression, “Well, assuming you didn’t completely fail the written test, then yes, you passed.”
He set a hand on my shoulder, “Ah, 60 years of teaching here and I still don’t tire seeing that expression. Come on, let’s go get you registered for classes so you can go home and celebrate.”
I followed behind him, but my mind felt like it was in a drunken haze.
I passed.
It didn’t seem real. Surely, he must be pulling a prank on me? Wasn’t there something wrong with my mana?
I started to slow down and breathe heavily, counting my breaths in and out like Arc once taught me to do.
“Do you need a moment?” My teacher asked, looking worried.
“Yeah,” I gasped for air, “can we sit for a moment?”
He nodded his head and led me to a conveniently placed bench where we sat. I kept counting my breaths while he filled out the form with my information on it.
“Hmm, I see that you’re not from a noble family?”
“No. I did recently accept a wardship, but that was mainly so I’d have a backup plan in case… I… didn’t…” I took in a big breath.
“That explains your mana distribution. I suppose it’s not covered in the general education curriculum that humans found it easier to focus on a single element and that us elves changed our cultivation style to match since it was more efficient for battle.”
“Will it be a problem for me?”
“Oh, it won’t be easy. You’ll have to put in four times the amount of work that the other students will, but it is possible. I haven’t seen a human do it yet, but there are always a few elves and dwarves that attempt to learn the traditional elementalist style every few years.”
He stood up and gestured me to follow, “Come now, I’m sure the Queen would allow you to repeat a year if you truly needed it.”
I allowed his confidence to influence me and began to follow him towards the Union Hall.
A loud groan then escaped me though as we entered the room, I forgot about the paladins, and was now about to walk right into them.
“If you’re ready to leave, I can escort you right now.” The paladin of Apheros stated while bowing to me.
My instructor loudly cleared his throat, and I believed he amplified his voice with mana, “And why would this promising student debase himself by joining your group of failures? You already have a room full of future rejects in here, surely one of them would make a more fitting recruit?”
Silence filled the hall, the paladin was immobile with an alarmed expression, and the various exam takers began to give looks of terror. The atmosphere was broken when the sound of someone sobbing could be heard walking in with another instructor, “Hear that? There’s one right now.” He started making shooing motions with his hand, “Go on now. I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed once he hears about all of the fun he’ll have serving your whore of a god.”
I couldn’t even register the insult to Apheros due to the hilarious expression of anger on the paladin. I started joining in on laughing with my teacher at the paladin but had to stop when a random thought burrowed into my head.
“Rot!” I grabbed the attention of my instructor and the room, “The Matriarch of Clan Hopkins is going to be furious at me. She went through so much trouble to get my wardship filed in time for the party I attended last night, and now it’s about to be nullified.” I let out a big full-body sigh, “I don’t think it’s even been a full day since I signed the contract.”
My teacher gave out a laugh as he placed a hand on my back and guided me through the room, “Hopkins… where did I just hear that name…?”
“Hmm, not sure where, unless you heard something about their newest knight Sir Lancel.” I thought out loud.
“No, that name doesn’t knock my tree.” We continued walking, passing by a test taker that was being held down by multiple people as they thrashed about.
“Hey look, that one’s having a panic attack.” the instructor pointed out.
I couldn’t help but smile at his casualness, “Huh, I was told by a senior student that there’s usually at least one per day…”
“Hmm, strange, normally they do that during the written portion.” he rubbed his chin while he finished leading me to an area where a bunch of administrators were stationed.
“I’ve got a future student here!” He handed the administrator my form, “Has his written exam been graded?”
The administrator pulled out a folder and started skimming through the papers in it, “Yes, right here.” They pulled the sheet of paper and placed it on the counter.
My instructor quickly grabbed it and began to scan my results, “Excellent, excellent! You tested out of the general education courses. That’ll leave you plenty of room.” He looked up at the administrator, “Sign him up for all four core element courses, and make sure you put him in my Wind Spells 1 class.”
“You want me to put him on the elementalist track?” The administrator asked surprised.
“Yes, now get to it, I haven’t failed an examinee yet and I’m starting to worry that I’ve gone soft.”
The administrator started filling out forms and making copies, and my future instructor turned to me, “I’m looking forward to seeing you in class Travis.” He held out a hand for me to shake.
I reached to take it, “I’m looking forward to it as well, umm…”
He let out a short belt of laughter, “Right, I never introduced myself, I am Archmage Evindal Quinsandoral, Department Head of Wind Mana Studies.”
I gasped a bit as I shook his hand, not realizing he was such an important figure.
He grinned at me, then turned to the administrator, “All set?”
“Yes, he just needs to sign here and then we can schedule his fitting for his school uniform.”
“Good, good.” He slapped his hand on my shoulder, “I’ll be taking my leave, you should be all set now.” He then set off on a brisk pace back towards the Union Hall.
“Is tomorrow all right for you?”
I turned to the administrator, still feeling a bit off and I signed the documents, “Umm, yeah, that should be fine… oh, I had a question about that. I know I’m allowed to bring a personal weapon to train with, but can I bring my own sword as well?”
The administrator looked up for a moment before answering, “Yes, as long as it’s approved by the Quartermaster. Bring it in tomorrow with your other weapon, and he’ll be able to determine if they fit the guidelines.”
“Thank you!” I grabbed the stack of papers that I was given and then suddenly began to giggle.
I did it! I really did it.
In two weeks, I was going to start learning how to become a mage.
I started floating through the Union Hall, completely ignoring the mass of people that were staring at me. I walked to the table that Barry was at and saw him doing his best impression of a statue.
I waved my hand in front of him, “Barry, are you ok?”
“You… you…” he stuttered, “You passed.”
“Of course I did!” I patted him on the shoulder, “You didn’t think I’d go through all of this trouble just to fail now, did you?